My fiance Dana is a fairly solid deck builder even though she has only been playing on and off for four years (I may have introduced her to the game, now she watches more draft content than I could ever watch), but in Arena she doesn't have that much in the way of access to high rarity cards. So she made a birds deck to utilise cheap spells, card draw and Murmuring Mystic. I didn't have a BO1 deck to play this week and sung out to her, she provided me with a list and I tweaked it a little (mostly to add my bae Niv) and it ended up being surprisingly good and fun.

HOW IT KILLS/CAN YOU SMEEEEEEEEEEEELL

Murmuring Mystic isn't Young Pyromancer, I mean, DUH. It's still an amazing card and can generate a slew of birdies for the thumpin. Every instant or sorcery you play will net you a 1/1 flying birb token, these add up fairly quick with this deck and we can just peck our opponent to death.

Crackling Drake is a natural fit for the deck and a strong finisher. At worst it's a four mana draw a card and eats a removal spell. At best you smash your opponent's face for 15 damage because they left it on the field when you untapped. That's a massive play mistake that people are STILL making.

Electrostatic Field is a 0/4 Defender that states whenever we play an instant or sorcery, it deals one damage to each opponent. That’s not terrible, and it won't win games on it's own, but it will help us burn down that life total and get in additional damage from our spells.

Our last kill card is Niv-Mizzet, Parun, because who DOESN'T love amazing synergy of "play an instant, draw a card, deal you one, draw a card from the instant, deal you one, make a 1/1 birb token, smash you for A BAJILLION SQUILLION HAHAHAHA DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE". Also, Niv can't be countered and has a 5/5 flying body. WHO EVEN DESIGNED THIS CARD. Because I love you. Like, a lot.

KNOW YOUR ROLE AND SHUT YOUR MOUTH.

A value machine needs value to make the cogs spin and put that submission on your opponent, so Jump-start cards are a natural fit here. But we also want to run cheap and nasty cards as well, so first up we recruited Goblin Electromancer to come in and make everything cheaper. This means that we can combo out with Niv-Mizzet, Parun when we untap and bring a world of hurt to our opponent.

CARD DRAW

We are running two copies of Opt which is an instant for one one blue mana, that lets you scry one and draw a card. Obviously this is good for card draw and filtering.

We are also running three copies of Risk Factor. Risk Factor is an instant with Jump-start and I can't stress enough how GOOD Jump-start is. Deal four damage to an opponent or drawing 3 cards is great. HOWEVER, I may be getting a little over Risk Factor, as in a lot of match ups I just wished it was some sort of mass board wipe.

DAMAGE STUFF

Three copies of Shock because it can do damage to any target including our opponent. The more cheap spells we play, the more copies we will get when we go off on the combo or at least cheap enough to sneak in a cheeky two damage to kill smaller creatures like opposing Goblin Electromancer.

We have four copies of Lightning Strike for the same reason, 3 damage to any target. Sure it costs us an extra colourless mana, but at the end of the day if you're going to cast this with the reduction, it becomes Lightning Bolt anyway.

Two copies of Banefire to close out the game. The damage can't be prevented, nor can it be countered if X is 5 or more. Perfect to round it out.

We also have two copies of Lava Coil, and boy howdy is this card actually impressive with the amount of work it puts in. You can exile those dirty Arclight Phoenix and they won't be coming back for round two. Dealing four damage is a solid number, actually. The only REAL problem with the card is that tag of Sorcery is such a drag.

THE PROS

Combo deck is fun and not a terrible chore/boring to grind Arena with.

Multiple threats all rely on the same keys of casting spells

BUDGET DECK that actually works really well.

THE CONS

Dies to heavy counterspell decks. This can be addressed with a sideboard and additional Banefire.

No mass removal means we can get swamped by the opponent.

Could use more bounce spells to deal with Ajani's Pridemate. Those can wreck your day.